Some low-income areas show improvement Fund allocations

The allocations for federal community development block grants are listed below with the old allocations and the amount of change.

Economic conditions improved in some of Spokane’s designated low-income neighborhoods over the past decade, which means they’ll get a little less federal money for neighborhood projects such as sidewalk repairs and park improvements.

West Central, Browne’s Addition, East Central, Lincoln Heights and Emerson-Garfield apparently benefited from increased home ownership, officials said.

Cannon’s Addition, Logan, Garry Park, Nevada-Lidgerwood and part of the North Hill showed economic weakness by comparison.

That analysis comes from a new allocation formula for $1 million targeted to help those neighborhoods through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and its community development block grant program.

HUD takes data from the U.S. Census to establish eligibility for individual neighborhoods receiving community development money.Funding is based on income, the number of housing units built before 1940, the number of overcrowded housing units, the number of homes with children headed by a single person, the number of youths and elderly living below the poverty level and minority populations.Conditions improved sufficiently in the Lincoln Heights area that the neighborhood was dropped from the community development program.

At the same time, a narrow section of the North Hill neighborhood was placed back on the list of community development neighborhoods. North Hill had been removed from the community development list after the 1990 census. Newly drawn boundaries taking in the lowest income census blocks of the North Hill were used to reestablish that area as a community development neighborhood.

Thirteen city neighborhoods are eligible for a combined $1 million in community development funds each year. Spokane lets neighborhood steering committees decide how to use that money within federal guidelines. The money goes for park improvements, building projects, sidewalk repairs, streets, street trees, neighborhood planning and social services.

For example, the East Central neighborhood used part of its community development allocation as matching funds to obtain a transportation grant that resulted in improvements along the South Perry business district.

According to 2000 census data, the 13 low-income neighborhoods had 22,695 residents living below the federal poverty level. Some 60,300 residents were living in homes at 80 percent of the median income in Spokane County, or $29,800 a year.

Jerry Numbers, chair of both the city’s Community Development Board and the East Central Neighborhood Council, said an increase in home ownership in the heart of the East Central Neighborhood is apparently bringing the improved conditions.

Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers said increased home ownership also is at work in creating improved conditions for West Central, along with higher income levels among the new homeowners.

Lower mortgage rates in recent years have helped attract buyers to the affordable homes, and that may be contributing to the overall rise in economic conditions found by the 2000 census in some neighborhoods, said Kevin Brownlee, of the city’s community development department.

Officials said the classic architecture of homes in older neighborhoods has attracted new homeowners with better incomes over the past decade, helping create a revival in places like West Central.

At the same time, neighborhoods showing a relative decline in economic conditions have larger numbers of rental units, families living in poverty, older housing and single-parent households, officials said.

The Cannon’s Addition Community Development Neighborhood encompasses just a small section on the north end of what’s commonly known as Cannon’s Addition, an area filled with apartment buildings. The North Hill community development boundaries were drawn around a segment of smaller single-family homes and apartments.